The present invention relates to interactive encoded video and more specifically to interactive MPEG video that can be used with a client device having a decoder and limited caching capabilities.
Set-top boxes of cable television systems have preferably been simple devices. The boxes generally include a QAM decoder, an MPEG decoder, and a transceiver for receiving signals from a remote control and transferring the signals to the cable headend. In order to keep costs down, set-top boxes have not included sophisticated processors, such as those found in personal computers or extensive memory for caching content or programs. As a result, developers attempting to provide interactive content that includes encoded video elements such as those found in dynamic web pages to subscribers have been forced to find solutions that are compatible with the set-top boxes. These solutions require having the processing functionality reside at the cable headend and further require that the content is delivered in MPEG format. In order to provide dynamic web page content, the content forming the web page first must be decoded and then rendered within the webpage frame as a bitmap. Next, the rendered frames are then re-encoded into an MPEG stream that the set-top box of a requesting user can decode. This decoding and re-encoding scheme is processor intensive.